Thankful

We had a great Thanksgiving this year and I loved the chance to show how thankful I am for my little turkeys!

We started out with a Fall Feast at her school early in the week.  Mimi and Grandpa surprised her and she was thrilled to have them + Cate and Emma there!

Early Thursday morning, I convinced Matt that we should venture out to the Houston Thanksgiving Parade. Not my best idea....we ended up arriving 30 minutes early, but parking was a mess and we did not have a good spot at all. Matt put Olivia on his shoulders for a bit, but it was pretty cold so we quickly admitted defeat and left!

We headed to the Woodlands to meet Popo and Tutu for lunch. The Marriott brunch was really great this year and we had such a nice time!

 

After a nap and some play time, we headed to Humble to meet up with the Mehta crew. Per usual, we got "camera happy" but ended up with some great pictures of the entire family!

Then we sat down to a beautifully decorated table and delicious meal.

We spent the night in Humble and Olivia and I hung out with Mimi and Grandpa on Friday while Matt had to work. Luckily they helped me tire her out!

 

One funny story for the memory book - we were all eating breakfast that morning and talking about how Matt was going to take my mom's car to work so I could have Olivia's car seat.  Olivia overheard the conversation and asked "Mimi, daddy is going to take your car?"  My mom answered "Yes.  What am I going to do without my car?"  Olivia got a huge grin and said "You will just cry your face off!" as we all erupted into laughter.  She now thinks its hilarious to repeat that phrase and has tried it out a few more times.  Unfortunately, I think its only really funny when said in the context of Mimi! ;)

We did some arts & crafts

 

Went to a restaurant with our babies

Made some pizza and cookies for our babies

Put our babies to bed

And, of course, performed the Olivia show (with a naked baby Tina and some help from Mimi)

 

And leftovers made a perfect lunch!

And right after lunch, she was beat and ready for a nap! (After a few cuddles!)

It was a great day and such a nice chance to be thankful for our many blessings!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Much to Mimi's dismay and before Thanksgiving, Houston has been getting ready for Christmas. And, we took full advantage of the the early preparations as well.

We checked out Zoo Lights at the Houston Zoo -- millions of light displays illuminate the zoo. This was our first year to attend and I think we were all impressed by the lights.

We like this train display the best...it was huge and had about 6 toy trains running in and out of this little village.

Although most of the animals were sleeping, these elephants were awake and hungry.  There was no one around, so Olivia got lots of time with these guys.

Then we attended Mall Lights at the mall across the street from our house.  It was a holiday event with carolers, dancing, reindeer, and characters from The Nutcracker (Olivia's fave!)

The main attraction was Santa lighting up the lights around the Mall.  Since we drive home this way everyday, Olivia was thrilled to see it and every night can't wait till we turn the corner to see the lights!

A few weeks later we went to "Glisten" at a local outdoor shopping area near our house.  (She loved her new outfit!)

She saw Frosty and Rudolph, had her first candy cane of the season, and watched an ice sculptor.

The "main attraction" was supposed to be the lighting of the snowflakes. Unfortunately, there were a few "technical difficulties" but finally the lights came on and were just as pretty as we were hoping!  (PS - Olivia thought it was hilarious that the lights did not come on right away.  She loves to tell the story of how everyone did the countdown....at this point she will slowly countdown....then she gets to 1 and dies laughing and says "and then no lights came on!")

And we went to Story Time at a local bookstore to hear the story of the Grinch.  Olivia (unsurprisingly) loves Cindy Lou Who...so I had to get her the doll! ;)